


TAKE ME OUT PT.2

by AgnesClementine



Series: FIGHTERS OF THE GOOD FIGHT [11]
Category: Supernatural, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Dean has some major apologizing to do, Diego is hurt and pissed and ready to kick some ass, M/M, Oops, a dumb shifter gets in between, kind of??, this is basically a summary, uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23249971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgnesClementine/pseuds/AgnesClementine
Summary: When he wakes up, his head is pounding- and his own face is looking back at him.He feels cold wash over him. Fuck. He was wrong. This is not a ghost possession.This is a shapeshifter.**********************************************Everything hurts. That's-that's it.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Dean Winchester
Series: FIGHTERS OF THE GOOD FIGHT [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1301294
Comments: 176
Kudos: 270





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

> UHHH. I wanted to say something. But my brain is stupid and I forgot what. Forgive me.
> 
> But anyway, have this. Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

Dean keeps finding pieces of Diego among his things. His jeans, shirts, and socks mixed up with Dean’s. Hell, even his underwear. A knife in his jacket’s pocket.

It’s unfair, how he lingers, haunting Dean, and at the same time feels like a missing limb with who knows how many miles between them even though Dean was the one who told him to go. Dean hates him and misses him so much he wants to hit something. Repeatedly, until his knuckles bleed or something breaks.

He finds himself thinking about how silver never bothered Diego while he melts it into bullets. Then tells himself no, he’s not doing that. And then thinks about how Grace never aged a day. His mind is trained well, keeps latching onto details; gleam of Diego’s completely human teeth when he smiles, absolutely ordinary warmth of his skin when their bodies lie flush to each other. How he bleeds, just like Dean does, when he nicks his fingers with his knives. His mind is looking for clues and all it’s giving him is heartburns.

And still, when Dad calls him two days later- a case in South Carolina, and a hunter who needs two sets of helping hands- Dean just tells him, “Diego’s gone. I’m alone.”

He thought about how he’d tell Dad that he was wrong. That he made a mistake, and that Diego is not who Dean thought he was. That he got played, tangled up in feelings.

But he can’t. It doesn’t sound right.

“The monster?” Dad asks. And it’s a logical assumption for a hunter, but fuck, if even Dad thought that only death could pull them apart…

Dean clears his throat, “No. I- We got into a fight.” And what a fight. Hell.

He feels small and childish, hurt and lost. He says, “I don’t think we’ll see him again, Dad.” Because Dean told him to go, Dean told him to get fucking lost, _bye and I hope we never see each other again_.

Dad is quiet for a thoughtful beat, not saying anything until, “Too bad. I liked that kid.”

And Dean thinks, _yeah, I really liked him too_.

  * ●●●●



Days pass, drag on like something half-dead trying to crawl towards a sanctuary. He takes a few hunts, hauntings mostly because if anything, people will keep dying and be too stubborn to completely let go. 

He talks to Dad mainly, and Pastor Jim sometimes, and he doesn’t have a mind to check the caller ID when his phone rings anymore.

Which is really the only reason why he answers when Sam calls him.

“Hey,” he says, eyes trained on the TV screen, expects Dad’s deep voice and the rumble of the engine in the background, and instead gets-

“Hey, Dean.”

He’s about two seconds of hanging up- Sam wanted out and now he’s out- but then his baby brother says, “What happened to Diego?”

And- and Dean remembers the two of them, unlike Dean, stayed in touch. He tries not to let it get to him because it’s stupid and childish. And he wonders if Sam knows. Did Diego tell him?

“What?”

“Diego, he’s, he’s not answering my calls,” Sam tells him.

“Yeah, well, we’re not besties anymore,” Dean tells him bitterly, feels awkward and then hurt because this is _Sam_ , they’re supposed to get each other. “I don’t know what’s up with him.”

A beat, then, “What happened?”

Dean turns off the TV and goes over to the table. Crime scene photos glare up at him. Ghost possession, he thinks, considering that the little girl who miraculously survived claims her daddy wasn’t acting like himself. And immediately after murdered his wife in cold blood.

“Diego’s a,” he starts and then can’t say it. “Diego’s not human.”

“What?” Sam asks, voice squeaking. So Dean guesses Diego didn’t go to bare his soul to him as well. Shit.

“We finished up a case and Diego told me that he’s not human,” Dean summarizes, swallowing. Diego’s eyes, offensively honest and hurt burn against his eyelids.

Sam splutters, asks, “Then- what is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“ _You don’t know?_ ”

“I don’t _want to know_ , Sam,” Dean says pointedly.

“Right,” Sam mutters because he’s familiar with hunter ways. Even if he doesn’t want to have anything to do with them. You can’t strip a man of his childhood.

“Did he say anything else?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Jesus, Sam! No. He didn’t say anything else. I told him to get lost and he did.”

“You sent him away?” Sam asks, bewildered, like _that’s_ the ridiculous thing in this whole situation and not that Dean was so stupid to get himself in it in the first place.

“Are you just gonna repeat everything I tell you or does this call have a purpose?”

“Dean, he always calls me back if he misses a call.”

“I told you-“

“If he’s pissed, he’s pissed at you! Not me!”

“If? Sam, you’ve got no idea what went down,” Dean says. Traitorous part of him- the part that still aches like an open wound in his chest- feels horrible and ashamed.

Sam sighs, that little brother, exasperated sigh and Dean, in the background of his own mind, misses him something fierce. They are brothers, they’re supposed to stick together.

“Did you try calling him?” Sam asks.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not? Dean, you miss him. I know you and I know you do-“

“You think, Sam?!” He hollers suddenly, provoked by how easily Sam can read him. Or is he just so transparent to everyone?

“God! You’ve got no idea! I keep finding his damn knives all over the place! And every fucking umbrella keeps reminding me of his tattoo-“

“ _What?_ ”

“Of course I miss him!” He shouts. There’s no reason for pretending anymore. And he's...he's furious because Diego got him so twisted up.

“Wait, Dean, backpedal. What tattoo?”

“What?” He blinks.

“Diego has a tattoo?”

Dean shakes his head, breathing harshly. “Yeah, on his wrist. An umbrella.” He could probably draw it from memory, with all the times he traced his fingers over it or watched Diego rub it absently.

“What kind of umbrella, Dean?”

“A fucking umbrella, I don’t know,” he shrugs. Why the hell is Sam so hung up on a stupid tattoo?

Sam goes quiet in his “connecting the dots” way. In the background, Dean hears voices, cars driving past.

“Dean,” his little brother says at last, “you’re a fucking idiot.”

Dean chokes on saliva, caught off-guard, “Hey! Go fuck yourself-“

“Dean, he’s- Oh my God, you’re so stupid sometimes, I swear. You didn’t even let him tell you everything, did you?”

Dean suddenly has a feeling that Sam actually does know more about this than he thought. “What?”

“ _Oh my God,_ ” Sam repeats. “Call him.”

“Sam, you’re not listening to me. He’s not gonna pick up.”

There is, of course, a strong possibility that Diego just went home. Or maybe not _home_ home, but to his place at the gym. And Dean knows he could go there, check for himself and not do this over the phone like a coward. But-

But.

“Then you’ll call him until he does,” Sam tells him like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Jesus, you made a real mess out of this.”

“How about you fucking enlighten me already, huh?”

Sam huffs, “Hell no. Diego’s gotta tell you, not me. And this time, you better listen to him.”

  * ●●●●



Dean…doesn’t call Diego. Not right away, that is. He will- fuck, _he swears he will_. But he has to deal with this case first. Ghost possessions are relatively rare, but they are somewhat of a bitch to deal with anyway. At least relatively easy to take care of. Especially since ghosts don’t care much about being seen.

Dean follows his Casper the unfriendly ghost’s tracks to a closed down recreation center. Strange, but Dean figures that there had to be at least one wasted teenager who took a swan dive into an empty pool and cracked their skull open.

Once he combs through the locker rooms and such, he ventured down to the storage and maintenance spaces. Thick sheets of dust are disrupted with messy footprints, normal at first, then dragging and staggering. There’s something else on the floor, gooey and pretty gross. Not ectoplasm because it’s too light and too thick, like damn jello, and honestly stinks. He’s careful not to step on it.

Down the hallway that leads to the boiler room, the smell only gets stronger. Dean wrinkles his nose.

There’s the door at the end of the hall- or at least there used to be. All that’s left now are hinges drilled into the doorframe. Something hangs from them and Dean points his flashlight at it, face turning into a grimace. Flaps of skin are caught on the rusted metal, half-dried blood clinging to them. Aw, that ghost caught that poor fucker on the doorframe, that’s not gonna be pleasant.

Lost in the moment, Dean turns to crack something at Diego- doesn’t know what yet, never really does until it leaves his mouth- but instead of Diego (who’s not here, fuck) he’s met with a blur of motion and a sharp hit to the head.

  * ●●●●



He has to stop getting hit in the fucking head.

When he wakes up, his head is pounding- and his own face is looking back at him.

He feels cold wash over him. Fuck. He was wrong. This is not a ghost possession.

This is a shapeshifter.

“Welcome back,” the shifter tells him. It’s looking at him like it’s checking if it got everything right. It did. Every damn detail.

“I know it’s a handsome face, but I kind of called dibs, you see,” Dean says. His hands are tied behind his back but, otherwise, he thinks he’s free.

The shifter grins. It’s fucking disturbing.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m just borrowing it for a bit,” it says. “You sure have a lot of drama in your life for a hunter. And not to talk about romance!”

“You motherfucker,” Dean tells him for the jab. He feels dread building in his stomach.

The shifter clicks its tongue at him. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. This isn’t personal, I know you never hunted my kind before.”

Dean squirms and shit, his hands are actually tied to something else behind his back, a pipe or some shit. “Then why pick me?” He asks.

The shifter tilts its head at him, squints apologetically. “Well, you are a hunter. It’s like an obligation on my part. Same as it is on yours. See? No hard feelings.”

“So what? You’re gonna kill me and then?”

It snorts, “Oh, yeah. No. I’m not killing you yet- first, I’m killing that poor hotshot boyfriend of yours- or is it ex-boyfriend? Because, ouch, by the way, _that was brutal_ -“

“Leave Diego out of it.”

“Oh, c’mon! Like you’re not curious, I’m simply following my gut. Well. _Our gut_.”

It stands up then and Dean trashes because _no_. Diego will think he came to apologize and then- shit. Fuck. And even if Dean could warn him, even if he wasn’t tied up, Diego wouldn’t answer his calls because Dean fucked up. He’s getting a bad sense of déjà vu and it’s not funny in the slightest.

The shifter sighs, says, “Well, I guess I’ll see you after I peel his pretty face off,” and leaves.

Fuck.

Dean yells after it, screaming threats and curses, and starts trying to figure out how to get out of here.


	2. 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, yeah, hi. Things are happening. They are not good.
> 
> Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

The dirty water splashes from the mop over the worn-out parquet and Diego winces at how the harsh movement makes his shoulder and hip twinge. Last night, he was chasing a guy who tried to rob a jewelry store and made a mistake of not looking both ways before running across the street. The car screeched to a halt but not before not so gently bumping into his side. Diego went over the hood and checked his shoulder on the landing. Safe to say, he didn’t get the guy.

Al and everyone else left a while ago, a good few hours, but Diego’s lazy today, and tired; dragging himself from one corner to the next like there are anchors tied to his feet. He scrubs the mop against the floor, left-right, up-down, circle. Scrubs harder at, well, whatever _that_ is, fucking glued to the floor.

Police radio is crackling in the background and Diego is only half-listening; nothing close to him for now. He straightens, listens to his spine crack.

The dispatch reports a break-in two blocks away from the gym.

Diego looks around the gym, blindly discards the mop into the bucket of murky, soapy water. He’s only two quarters done with the floor.

Looks like it’s gonna stay that way for tonight.

  * ●●●●



He stumbles through the gym door at 2 am, so tired he can barely see and aching all over.

He walks through his room blindly, in near pitch-black, and strips clumsily, leaving everything on the floor by his bed. It’s probably a bad idea; there are knives in his clothes and for all he knows, morning Diego will completely forget they are there and step on one of them. Half-heartedly, he shoves the heap of cloth and metal underneath the bed.

He passes out on top of the sheets, wakes up sometime after to a slight chill- as the adrenalin left his body completely- and is barely situated underneath the blanket before he falls asleep for good.

  * ●●●●



In the morning, Al wakes him up by yelling obscenities through the locked door. Shit, did he lock up the gym when he got back? He can’t remember.

By the time he’s vertical and not dizzy, the pounding on the door has stopped and he grimaces at the itchy feeling of dried blood at his temple. Ugh. He needs a shower.

It’s a bit like a walk of shame when he gets to the main area on his way to the showers and knows that he looks like hammered crap even though Nigel and Donny- Danny? Diego can’t remember- and some other guys who are early birds don’t say anything. They are good friends like that. Or something.

In the shower, he notices there’s a shallow scrape over his collar bone, stinging a bit when the water hits it directly. He can’t remember how he got it, probably didn’t even notice when it happened. He’ll have to put on some antibiotic cream over it, just in case.

Slowly, inevitably, his thoughts drift to Dean. It’s sad; what heartache makes of a person, if he’s in the shower, thinking about Dean, and doesn’t even feel like jerking off. He’d laugh if he didn’t feel so much like crying instead.

Sometime between passing the city borders and acquiring a case of insomnia that dissipates only after Diego’s hurting down to his bones and laying in the bed with his chest still and heart beating sluggish in his fingertips, missing Dean became a chronic pain. Always there, lurking, sparking up in cold weather and rain. Diego is sad and he is angry and he doesn’t know which one of them what emotion belongs to.

The day passes slowly. And fast. In a blink that stretches into infinity. He works his bruised muscles, fixes- or tries to fix the heater in Al’s office- puts back the clustered equipment. He tries to keep himself busy.

  * ●●●●



Dean works on the rope tied around the pipe until his fingers hurt. His wrists are raw from rubbing the skin over the rope, and he’s getting frustrated enough to want to punch something. It’s been two hours and by this time the shifter could be who the fuck knows where.

Finally, he yells in frustration and kicks out. His foot catches air, which is highly unsatisfying, so he smacks his heel against the ground a few more times. It doesn’t help much, but for a glorious second his mind shuts up and stops telling him what a fucking moron he is.

He should’ve just left. He should’ve called Diego right away and he should have just fucking gone to see him and-

He shouldn’t have been such an asshole in the first place.

“Fuck,” he chokes out.

He messed up. He screwed up the best thing that happened to him and now Diego’s- Diego could die thinking Dean hates him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck.”

He sniffles, shuffles to his knees, arms bent awkwardly until he somehow weasels himself to face the wall and that goddamn pipe. He gets to his feet and plants one foot flat against the wall. His fingers wrap around the pipe, dusty and greasy with grime, and he pulls.

Diego’s not gonna die not knowing that Dean’s sorry and that he loves him- not like this and sure as hell not now.

He strains, feels both the joints in his arms pop and the pipe creak miserably. This building is old and rusty and if he just puts in some goddamned effort-

There’s a loud, sharp crack and Dean lurches backward, hits the wall with his back.

He doesn’t wait to free himself from the ropes. The pipe clangs loudly to the floor and Dean runs out like there’s a werewolf hot at his heels, like Sammy’s in danger, _because Diego is in danger_.

Outside he halts, swears loudly and throws his hands up because the fucker took his car.

  * ●●●●



“Ya chip my floor, I’m kicking you out,” Al calls over his back.

Diego, flat on his stomach on the ground, halts with one of his knives above the floorboards. Just for a second, though, and then he scratches over whatever the fuck that is still glued to the floor.

“Your floor’s already chipped,” he says back, wincing at how his voice rattles through his throat. He needs sleep, he knows, but lying motionless in the dark with his thoughts doesn’t appeal to him much lately.

Al mutters something to himself, parquet creaking as he comes closer. Diego sees his feet in his periphery and his shadow falls over him as he peers down to see his progress.

“Anything?” Al asks.

Diego presses the blade harder over, again, whatever the fuck it is, and it screeches, taking off just a thin layer of black, crusted mass before neatly cutting into the wood right next to it.

Silence.

“Yeah,” Diego responds after a beat. Keeps scratching. He could bet it’s just a chewed out gum sixty years old and infused with the dirt and the fucking floorboard itself.

Al stands by his shoulder and watches his minuscule headway for a few moments longer. Then he gets bored and with a huff of encouragement traipses off to his office. He’s gonna come bug Diego about the heater in 20 minutes. Tops.

Diego sighs, keeps scratching.

  * ●●●●



He sends the last of the guys off at the end of the work hours- and then a boot jams itself between the door and the doorframe as he’s about to lock up.

He freezes. Because he knows that boot.

Dean’s eyes are wide and scared, and there’s trepid tension in his jaw, but his shoulders loosen when he sees Diego.

Diego stares and misses him more than he did all this time, and wants to kiss him- and has no idea what he’s doing here.

“Dean?” He asks, warily. Dean’s last words to him echo in his head then and he discreetly palms the knife from his back pocket.

Dean swallows, says, “Diego, God, it’s good to see you.” His eyes flick left and right, over his shoulder like he’s expecting someone watching him. Diego doesn’t know why, but something doesn’t feel right.

“What are you doing here?” He questions further. His face feels numb, just throbbing faintly with his heartbeat.

Dean sighs, “I want- I need to apologize,” he says. “But, can we do it inside?” When Diego’s fingers grip the doorframe tighter, he adds, “Please?”

Diego stares, skims his eyes over Dean’s lightly freckled cheeks, down the slope of his nose. Looks him in the eyes. He looks tired and sad and Diego feels for him with pathetic empathy. He steps aside, lets him in.

He leads Dean back to his room, acutely aware of the knife in his hand, warm with his body heat, and Dean’s eyes on the back of his neck, roaming down his shoulders. He feels weird; this is supposed to be scary and anxiety-inducing. Dean is here and he’s either sorry or he came back to tie a loose knot. But Diego just feels detached. Achy and missing Dean somewhere deep down in his core but it feels like that Diego and the one standing in this room are worlds apart. Or maybe like he and Dean are worlds apart.

He closes the door softly, even though Al left almost an hour ago and they are alone.

“So,” he says, faces Dean.

Dean leans against the sink, arms crossed and shoulders hunched; it’s a defensive, embarrassed pose and it still feels wrong. Forced.

“I want to apologize. For what I said when- the last time.”

“Yeah?” Diego asks, searching.

Dean nods, clears his throat, “I’m sorry, it was…a lot. And I didn’t think, I just-“

“Assumed and yelled?” Diego fills in with an arched eyebrow.

Dean winces, says lamely, “Yeah.”

“And you think that sorry makes it better?” Diego asks.

Dean keeps looking at him in this way; like he’s seeing him for the first time and it unnerves him. Diego’s not the only one who keeps some things to himself. He’s not the one who changed. Or at least he’s not the only one who changed.

Dean ponders it. Diego leans against the staircase and runs his thumb over the sharp edge of the knife, close to drawing blood but not quite.

“It makes it closer to resolved. Doesn’t it?” Dean asks, pushing away from the sink and advancing towards him. The closer he gets and the longer he looks at Diego like he wants to take him apart and see what he’s made of, the more Diego sees that something is not right.

“I guess it does,” Diego allows, observes him back. The perfectly right, confident stride, firm shoulders, resolve on his face. The light shining into his calm green eyes that haunt Diego’s dreams, furious and betrayed.

“So?” He asks, close enough that Diego can clearly see his freckles.

Diego straightens, reaching his resolve. He asks, “So. Who the hell are you?”

A hopeful, pre-prepared smile freezes on Not-Dean’s lips, then stretches into a cocky smirk.

“Ah. So there is a reason Dean likes you so much. Or, well, liked you so much,” the intruder taunts.

Diego’s fingers tighten around the hilt of his knife, mind running through a catalog of what the hell he might be looking at here.

“How’d you figure I’m not Dean?” The monster asks curiously.

“Hell’s gonna freeze over before Dean comes to apologize to me,” Diego responds, ignoring how true and painful that is.

The monster pouts. Diego wants to hit him.

It reaches out and Diego stabs him. Grabs his wrist, pulls and shoves the blade between his ribs. The monster hisses, swearing at him and when Diego flips him over his shoulder, they both go down. He takes an elbow to the jaw, feels pain blossom behind his eyes. The monster grapples for his knife, but Diego holds a firm grip on it, honed from the years and years of practice. He throws an elbow back, feels arms wrap around his neck and pull him back, spine arching painfully. Dean’s not much bigger than Diego, but he always had a bit more bulk in his arms. Good thing Diego’s been wrestling around with Luther since they were old enough to walk; he knows how to fight someone stronger than him. And he knows how to use it for his advantage.

When Not-Dean yanks him back sharply, Diego goes with it, uses the momentum to roll himself over the monster’s head, lands on his knees and pulls back. He wants some space between them because this thing clearly knows how he fights- it knows because Dean knows and Diego has to find something he can use that Dean’s not aware of. Knives are not even coming into consideration; Diego might feel strangely detached from everything but he’s still brimming with anger- at Dean but more at himself- and one wrong thought’s gonna be his own knife lodged in his throat. He drops the one in his hand on the floor and kicks it behind himself, underneath the sink.

Not-Dean immediately starts with the offense; it’s using Dean’s moves, but it’s not trying to be careful like Dean is when they spar occasionally (or _sparred_ ). Diego deflects a fist aimed at his face but takes a knee to his ribs. On the next swing, he grabs the monster’s hand behind his back, forces it back and up until something cracks and Not-Dean screams. It rams its dislocated shoulder into Diego’s chest, takes him by surprise, and with its good arm cracks Diego’s head against the wall.

White bursts behind his eyelids and sharp pain spikes above his temple. His fingers slip over the rough brick. He feels fingers threading through his hair, twistedly familiar, then tighten, securing their hold on his skull. His head is pulled back and he struggles with focusing on the lines of mortar between the bricks in front of him.

“Nighty night, sweetheart,” Not-Dean coos into his ear and rams his head forward again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so. Considering the...general global-ish state of things due to COVID, I got an idea.
> 
> I'm pretty much closed in my house 24/7 now so I thought about taking some Dean/Diego drabble asks on Tumblr. They can be connected to this series, they can be AUs...I'd gladly do some featuring other Hargreeves sibs too in them (I know you guys are fond of Klaus XD) Not gonna write any Hargreeves bashing, tho. As long as they are not too long and I still have schoolwork to do so I can't promise to do all of them but I'll give my best! <3 Also, you can send me questions not concerning the series and the boys??? I'll gladly answer pretty much anything so be inquisitive! Or just drop in to say hi! <3
> 
> My Tumblr is agnesclementineblog :D


	3. 3.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tah-dah! It's April 1st and- I already told this joke but- I'm 19 and I never learned how to read. Which is unfortunate bc I'm supposed to be writing fanfics oops. AKA it's my birthday and I have no idea if that's funny at all.
> 
> Anyway! Here's the chapter! Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

Diego is, he supposes, somewhat grateful for this. In a weird, fucked up way.

From this angle, cuffed to the radiator, the light from the ceiling casts strange shadows over the imposter’s face. Makes it look bony and sinister, eyes too dark to be Dean’s. It’s the first thing he notices, really, when he comes back to himself, not much later.

The other is the uncomfortably tender way with which the monster is observing him. It looks out of place on Dean’s face, the borderline obsessive awe.

The blood from Not-Dean’s side, where Diego stabbed him, seeps through his clothes and fingers, drips from the knuckles onto the floor. That’s gonna be a bitch to scrub out of the floorboards.

Not-Dean ignores his injury- injuries, if Diego counts the messed up shoulder- and prowls across the floor toward him. Diego follows him with his eyes, even though he feels slightly dizzy and pain sparks behind his eyes every time he blinks.

Not-Dean crouches with a groan just outside of the reach of his legs, looks him over.

“You’re a strange one, huh?” It asks Diego.

“Depends who you ask,” he rasps back.

“I’m asking you.”

“Then, no. I’m not.”

It doesn’t seem happy with his answer. Well, tough shit because Diego honestly doesn’t give a fuck.

It purses its lips at him. It’s Dean’s expression, for when he needs to lay it out thick and heavy for whatever jackass who needs to hear it.

“You know, I don’t just look like Dean,” it starts slowly. The shoulder Diego dislocated hangs limply by his side. “I also have his memories. And I know what he feels. Or felt, I guess- it’s not exactly a telepathic bond.”

When Diego doesn’t say anything, he adds, “And he used to be very fond of you. The key words being, of course, used to. He is curious about what you are, you know? Thinks about it a lot. God, can’t seem to make his brain let it go, hah!”

Diego wouldn’t expect anything else from him.

“Your point?” He still feels detached, but there is a different type of dullness to it. This is just some random bastard who picked a bad day to fuck around with Diego. Diego knows heartbreak and misery, quiet resignation that eats at him from the inside like acid. Nothing this monster tells him can feel worse than Dean’s hurt and anger, betrayal in his eyes as he told him to leave.

Not-Dean works its jaw, smirks. “The point is, Sammy called to knock some sense into him and Dean didn’t think you’re more important than a hunt. He picked me over you. Sad, right?”

“Expected,” Diego responded.

Diego’s indifference unnerved it, he could tell. Good. Unnerved means frustrated. Frustrated means angry. And angry means sloppy.

  * ●●●●



Dean carjacks the first car that looks like it’s gonna take him to Diego the fastest. The radio is stuck on some hippie junk station but he guns it down the highway without thought or energy to try switching it off.

He doesn’t know what he’s gonna do when he gets there; he doesn’t know what he could do. Begging seems like the best course of action. Kicking the shapeshifter’s ass and loading him full of silver.

And that is not even taking into consideration the fact that Diego could very well be anywhere in this stupid country. Hell, for all Dean knows, he might be in Florida or in Texas. Oregon. Dean doesn’t know.

He should’ve called before the hunt, no matter how distracted it might have made him. He should’ve just said _fuck this_ to the whole hunt, get someone else to finish it up, and gone to Diego with his tail tucked between his legs. Sam has faith in Diego; better yet, he has facts. That’s good enough for Dean.

He just wishes it was before he flushed everything down the toilet.

  * ●●●●



“You’re not very chatty? Understandable, I guess,” the monster tells him. It’s still bleeding, and not doing much about stopping it. And it shows; the creeping pallor, sweat, dry lips. Except it doesn’t care. Diego figures that bleeding out can’t kill it then. Cutting off the head might work- it would definitely make everything quieter, if nothing else.

“That’s why you’re here,” he says back.

His wrists are starting to ache and his shoulders are gonna be in hell later. At least his head stopped pounding, more or less.

“Cheeky,” the monster comments. “Well, Dean was into your dry humor.”

“Good taste.”

“Not very good monster tolerance though?”

Diego aims a flat look at its smirking face.

“I’m curious, though, about that,” it says thoughtfully after a beat of silence, “What exactly are you?”

Diego resists rolling his eyes. _None of your damn business._

It clicks it’s tongue at him, “Fine, we can play a guessing game, then.”

_Sweet Jesus._

  * ●●●●



The monster- shapeshifter, Diego finally figures, considering everything- leaves after it realizes that Diego won’t rise to its words. He thinks about them, of course, but he won’t give this thing the satisfaction of seeing they’re affecting him out of sheer spite.

He sits there and wonders how to get out of here, how to kill it. Tentatively, wonders if Dean is still alive. Hopes that he is.

He pushes his hands in the space behind the radiator, fingers fumbling for a thin blade stashed there.

  * ●●●●



Dean peels into the parking lot with little care and attention for anything besides the door of the gym, closed, and his car parked a little ways off.

It’s unlocked and he bursts in, eyes immediately looking for signs of struggle. Knives. Blood. There are none.

The door slams behind him, heavy with the momentum of him wrenching it open in his way in.

He opens his mouth to shout, to scream for Diego- and then Diego emerges from behind the corner.

He’s beautiful and flushed with extortion and alive and-

“You’re not Diego,” he hisses.

The shifter grins dangerously, “Nope,” he advances with the swagger that’s only one-third Diego and two-thirds monster. “But I’m sure loving his body and memories.”

And then he lunges at Dean. Dean sidesteps him, catches his upper arm in a grip and spins him, sends him sprawling on the floor. He turns, and as Dean comes after him, sweeps his feet from under him. Dean goes down on the hard floorboards, loses the air in his lungs, rolls away before the shifter beings his foot down on his chest. Instead, it booms loudly against the floor.

His eyes are wrong, the kind of detached malice Diego doesn’t possess. Diego’s eyes can be hot and furious, but there is always something bone-achingly soft in them.

The shifter comes at him again, and Dean knows this. He can do this dance, the footwork is familiar, movements all stored away in his mind. He ducks from a roundhouse kick- takes a high kick to the chest and _shit_ , yeah, Diego’s going easy on him when they spar. He stumbles back, barely keeps himself from ending up on his ass. The shifter tries the roundhouse kick again but this time Dean grabs his ankle and pulls. Mistake; because the shifter jumps and kicks him again with his free leg, even though he ends up on the floor, on his back.

_Goddamnit, Dean’s gonna have bruises._

He coughs.

The shifter rolls to his feet, watches Dean like a hawk. He wraps his hand around the handle of a dumbbell on the stand next to him.

“Oh, hell no,” Dean says, catching the gleam in the monster’s eyes. Fuck.

He scrambles to put some distance between them. The shifter moves, swings and just narrowly misses Dean. If he gets killed with a dumbbell…

The shifter spins on his heels, swings the dumbbell upwards and Dean feels the air rush in front of his face.

His foot catches on something on the floor, rough and slightly raised, and he goes down. He’s winded, brain probably panicky enough that he doesn’t actually even realize what happens until the shifter stands over him, malicious expression all wrong on Diego’s face, and lifts the dumbbell above his head-

And then there are footsteps rushing over to them and a body slams into the shifter, tackles him on the floor. The dumbbell thwacks heavily next to Dean’s head and makes his brain rattle inside his skull. Jesus fucking Christ.

He climbs to his feet but isn’t sure how to proceed.

One Diego, purples and blues blooming over his jaw and blood staining his temple, smack the other’s head against the ground.

He gets thrown off, sluggishly, blocks an elbow to the face, rolls over and tries to kick the shifter in the face, gets blocked. It’s like watching someone fighting with a mirror. A mirror that can hit back.

They both jump to their feet. A blocked punch to the jaw, knee in the ribs. The shifter takes a low kick to the knee, buckles and pulls Diego along as he falls down. He tosses Diego over himself and sends him onto the ground with a smack.

Diego twists, on his knees, and then violently swings the dumbbell. It connects with a sick crack, the shifter’s head harshly jerking to the side before he collapses.

Diego drops the dumbbell, takes in measured, deep breathes, eyes on his unconscious lookalike. There are stray droplets of blood on his face, the splatter from the hit, mixing with the palette of bruising along his jaw and cheekbones.

“Diego,” Dean chokes out, breathless and weak in the knees. He wants to kiss Diego, touch him and keep apologizing until his mouth bleeds.

Diego’s head snaps up to him and his eyes harden. They glimmer with tears and his skin flushes. “Get the fuck out of here,” he grits out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, random, but I recently remembered The Riddick Chronicles and The Pacifier and,,,I genuinely love both lmao XD Idk, I'm curious how many peeps are familiar/remember them lol


	4. 4.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellooo! I have an update for you guys. Finally. This is it for this fic and I'll start the next one soon. Because my brain has more words to throw out about these idiots.
> 
> Let me know what you think, please, feel free to drop me an ask or really anything on Tumblr anddd enjoy! :)

The fire crackles in Dean’s ears, sending heat into his face and his eyes zero in on the charred heap in the middle of the bonfire. Diego is standing a little ways away from him, silent, unmoving, out of reach. The tension in the air could be cut with one of his knives.

Dean doesn’t know what to do.

He managed to talk Diego into getting rid of the body together- managed to explain to him what the shapeshifters do and that _this one lied, whatever he said was lies_ \- outside of the city limits, but the ride here was quiet and hard. Cold in a way that has Dean’s head spinning.

Diego is mad, understandably so, and he doesn’t want to talk.

Dean sneaks glances at him, at the bruises on his face and angry marks around his wrists. At the vulnerable line of his throat, the rigidity of his shoulders and spine and feels his chest ache because he wants to reach out.

“Diego, I-“

“Don’t,” Diego cuts him off harshly, not looking at him.

Dean sighs, doesn’t know how to make this right.

He messed up. He messed up so bad- and over a thing that he doesn’t even fucking care about anymore. Not more than he cares about Diego.

They watch the fire burn in silence until all that’s left is ashes, then they wordlessly get back into the Impala and Dean takes them back to the gym, feeling sick.

  * ●●●●



Diego aches. The headache is back full force, pounding against his skull, and the rest of his body feels like one big, tender bruise. Dean trails after him to the boiler room, quiet, radiating regret.

It’s not that Diego doesn’t think he’s sorry; he knows that Dean’s a good person and he knows that he feels bad. But he feels like the seams are barely holding him together as it is. He doesn’t want Dean to say it because this is not the time nor place to fall apart.

He grabs a bag of peas from the freezer and trudges over to his bed. He drops down heavily and presses the cold bag against his face.

The stairs creak; Dean pauses at the bottom one, awkwardly stands there.

Diego feels tired. Slightly nauseous.

“I know you probably don’t want to talk,” Dean starts, taking in a deep breath.

“I definitely don’t want to talk,” Diego says forcefully.

“Sam’s worried about you.”

He blinks, suddenly remembering that shifter mentioned it too. “You talked to Sam?”

Dean nods, eyes downcast.

“He said you weren’t returning his calls. He got worried something happened to you.”

“Shit,” he says softly, hanging his head. He left his phone in the duffle when he came back, shoved both in the bottom drawer next to his bed. The battery’s for sure dead by now. He didn’t want to…well. Talk to anyone. He didn’t want to find a message saying “ _Changed my mind, I’m coming for you,_ ” on the screen when he woke up one morning. And he completely forgot about Sam.

“Yeah,” Dean says. He clears his throat. “Sam also told me to, uh. He told me to ask you. And to listen.”

Diego looks at him, presses the bag to the back of his neck with a small grimace. ‘Sam asked’ taste bitter to him. And still, Dean looks at him, timidly hopeful.

Diego blows out a breath that’s borderline a sob and a chuckle, reaches under his bed.

Dean tenses as he comes up with a blade, slim and shiny, and Diego doesn’t think about that as he flicks his wrist. He thinks about where he wants it to land, weaves the direction as his eyes follow it.

Dean’s eyes widen, glued to it as it travels the room in a horizontal arch, embed into the window sill.

Dean blinks at it, pulls it out and swallows before letting out a breathy chuckle.

“This is why you always pick darts in the bars,” he says, mostly to himself, with realization and achy fondness.

Diego swallows and says, “Yeah.”

“Shit,” Dean responds.

And Diego figures, what the hell. Might as well go all out.

He stands up, slowly walks over to Dean.

He takes the knife from Dean’s hand delicately, fingers barely brushing, and pockets it.

“And this,” he says. He sets one of Dean’s hands over his ribcage, warm and broad, and holds his breath.

Dean jerks at the contact at first, surprised, and then frowns in confusion.

“What-“ he starts and then stops. He splays his fingers wide and Diego watches as realization dawns on his face.

“You’re not breathing,” Dean says, eyes dropping to the hollow of his throat, unmoving.

“Yeah,” Diego affirms.

Dean nods, eyes far away, then tells him, “I saw you do this before.”

Diego frowns. He did this around Dean before; it’s harder to notice that curving knives, but he didn’t think-

“Remember djinn case?” Dean asks him in the face of his confusion. Diego nods.

“When you woke up in the- in the infirmary? In your house? You weren’t breathing, I thought-“ Dean explains.

“Oh,” Diego says, “I- Yeah. Yeah, that happens sometimes.”

And then he starts breathing again because h can talk just as long as there’s air in his lungs.

As his ribcage expands, Dean’s fingers twitch over his ribs. He doesn’t pull them away, though. If anything, they crowd closer.

“So you don’t actually need air at all?”

Diego shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“And you- what was that, telekinesis?”

Diego snorts. “Nah. Just…I don’t know. I can curve stuff that I throw.”

“So not just knives? Anything?”

“Yeah.”

Dean blows out a breath. He casts his eyes down and pauses. Diego realizes he’s looking at his tattoo.

He’s almost 24 years old and he still has to fight the urge to pull his sleeve over it like a shameful child.

Dean lets out a sharp sound and his fingertips dig lightly into Diego’s flesh before his arm circles around Diego’s middle tentatively, pulling him into a careful hug. His cheek brushes Diego’s and then his forehead touches Diego’s shoulder as he bows his head.

He suddenly barks out a harsh laugh, self-deprecating, as his other arm circles around Diego as well. He’s holding Diego like he’s afraid he’ll break him.

“God, Diego,” he says, “I’m a fucking idiot,” and it’s not “ _I’m sorry_ ” because Diego doesn’t want to hear that, not yet, but it is “ _I missed you_ ” and “ _I don’t want you to hurt anymore_ ” and Diego folds into him like a house of cards blown by the wind.

  * ●●●●



_Diego wakes up to white/black darkness, bleary and disoriented until his brain registers the static covered monitors that are bathing the room in dim, grey light. A frown pulls at his face and his eyes fall to one corner where Luther, Ben and Klaus are perched on the only chairs in the room. Luther’s is in the corner, his feet up on the seat, one arm hugging his knees loosely and his head resting in the crook of his elbow. Ben’s head is pillowed on his other forearm and Klaus is drooling on Ben’s shoulder. They are absolutely dead to the world, even as Klaus’ face twitches every now and then._

_Opposite to Diego, Vanya is clocked out as well, wrapped into a pile of blankets up to her throat. Her head is bowed and her bangs are the only part of her actually visible outside of her cocoon._

_“Diego,” a finger pokes at his cheek and he jerks, turning his head to squint at Allison, very close to his face._

_The two of them are camping out against the cabinet, a duvet beneath them because Allison is too above sleeping on just the floor like the rest of them- or sleeping on the chairs, he amends- and another duvet and a blanket covering them._

_He makes some sort of acknowledging noise in the back of his throat, realizing it was probably Allison what woke him up._

_“Diego, seriously, start breathing,” she tells him with a slight scowl and pokes his cheek again._

_He bats her hand away with a quiet whine and breathes in because, oh, yeah; he did stop breathing. Again. It’s been happening more and more often._

_“Stop wakin’ me up for shit like dis,” he slurs sleepily, burrowing into the warmth of their covers._

_“Do you know how freaky it is to sleep next to someone who’s not making any noise or moving at all?” Allison tells him quietly, then jostles him beneath the duvet with “Lift your feet up, the blanket got untucked.”_

_It takes them a few tries because they’re both uncoordinated with sleep, but they manage to tuck the blanket beneath their feet again. Immediately, he feels warmer and curls up against that soft, soft duvet beneath them. Allison shifts around and supports her arm on the boneless part between his ribs and hipbone. It presses down on his spleen a bit, sure, but he’s too tired to actually care about that._

_“Keep breathing,” Allison tells him, thick with sleep._

  * ●●●●



It occurs to Diego, sometime after- while he’s eating very later dinner- or very early breakfast, depending on the person- with Dean- that Sam knows. Sam figured it out.

And if it weren’t for Sam, Diego would probably never see Dean again. The real Dean, at least.

“Give me a minute,” he says, setting his half-finished pizza slice on the plate.

Dean looks up at him as he gets out of the booth, says, “Uh, okay?”

And Diego waves his newly charged phone at him in explanation before getting out of the diner.

He powers up the phone to find almost a dozen missed calls, texts and voice messages from Sam. They are the only ones too, it’s not like he has a lot of people eager to talk to him.

He dials the number almost nervously, somewhat scared what Sam’s gonna say even though Dean being here should be the answer enough to that question.

It rings twice and then Sam’s saying “Diego? Is that you?” with worrying urgency that’s never not gonna feel strange.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, “I’m sorry I wasn’t answering, I-“

“It’s fine, forget it,” Sam interrupts him. With more hesitation, he asks, “Is- is Dean with you? Did you guys make up?”

Diego casts a glance over his shoulder. Dean’s chewing like a starved man, flipping through newspaper with half-interest.

“Uh, yeah, something like that.”

Things are…weird between them. They are probably gonna be for a while. But they can get better. They have to.

Sam releases a breath over the line, says, “Thank Jesus.”

Diego barks a laugh, surprised.

“Don’t laugh, you both need someone to make sure you don’t get your dumb selves killed,” Sam tells him.

“What, we’re one dumbass watching the other?”

“Yeah, your dumbass-ness cancels each other out that way,” Sam jesters lightly.

“Fuck you,” Diego tells him with a laugh.

Sam chuckles too but then clears his throat and tells him seriously, “But really, I’m glad you two are okay again.”

Diego briefly wonders if there’s _something else_ that Sam knows. But there’s no way, with the countless states between them and the calls and texts as the only means of communication. And Diego sure as hell won’t dig himself into a hole by _asking him_.

He chews his bottom lip thoughtfully for a second. “Yeah, I’m glad about that too,” he admits in the end.

Sam sighs, says, “I’m sorry. I have an early start tomorrow-“

“Oh, yeah!” Diego says, “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah. I guess it would be futile to say hi to Dean?” Sam phrases it as a joke, but he doesn’t sound particularly jovial about it.

“Maybe,” Diego says.

Sam hums. “Well, bye. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Yeah, bye,” Diego hangs up.

A small family of three leaves the diner as he pockets his phone, father, mother and a little girl. They are probably doing that “road trip across the States” thing. Diego watches sadly as the mother buckles the girl into her car seat and plats a kiss to her head.

He was thinking about visiting Mom, even actually came as far as stepping in front of the door. But he couldn’t make himself knock. Hell, he couldn’t make himself sneak in through the back. He loves his mom, and he misses his home- but he loathes how it feels with Dad in it. Like a black hole sucking everything in.

He gets back to the booth and picks up his discarded slice without a word.

“It went well?” Dean asks him tentatively, as always when his brother- rarely- comes up in conversation.

Diego nods.

Still, Dean has that sullen expression on his face; the dejected, miserable one.

Diego chews the inside of his cheek and tells him, “He said hi.”

Dean looks surprised, like it’s so strange that his brother wants to greet him- and then he nods, clearing his throat.

Diego decides to bite the bullet and asks, “Anywhere particular we’re going next?”

“You’re coming with me?” Dean asks him, eyes wide.

Diego shrugs, tries not to hunch his shoulders too much even as his palms sweat and his bruises throb with the sudden rush of blood in his face. “If- if you’ll let me.”

Dean doesn’t hate him, but that doesn’t mean he’s thrilled to have Diego with him 24/7 so soon.

But Dean says, “Diego- Christ, yes. _Yes_ ,” eyes soft like that’s not even a question.

“We’ll find something,” he adds and hooks his ankles with Diego’s.

**Author's Note:**

> *gasp* a wild Sam appears ;)


End file.
